Atlanta Daily World

Special Session Expected To Make A Quick Ruling

By JAMES F. DONOVAN

United Press International

WASHINGTON.-(UPI)-The Supreme Court agreed Monday to meet in an extraordinary special session Thursday to consider whether Negro students will be allowed to enter the Little Rock, Ark., Central High School next month.

An unexpected court announcement said the nine justices, who do not convene their regular term until Oct 6, would return from their vacations to hear oral arguments on the explosive dispute.

The court invited the Justice Department to participate if it so desired. The department declined to say immediately whether it would accept.

A quick court ruling was expected. The special session was designed to give the high court time to settle the legal case before the opening of the school on Tuesday, Sept 2.

At issue is the plea of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People for the removal of the legal barriers set up by two lower courts. The lower courts barred the admission of Negro students to the school, at least for the time being.

REGISTRATION UNDERWAY

Registration is underway at Central High School, where pro-segregation violence last year prompted President Eisenhower to send federal troops into Little Rock to enforce integration.

Despite the lower court rulings, the Negro students who attended the school under the protection of the federal troops last year, were expected to apply for admission again.

The NAACP has appealed from the decision of a federal district court which would delay integration for 2 1/2 years. It also appealed the ruling of the Eight Circuit Court of Appeals staying its previous order outlawing segregation at the high school.

The organization originally directed its appeal to Justice Charles E. Whittaker, who has authority to rule on legal problems affecting the eighth circuit while the high court is in recess.

But the court said in announcing the special session that Whittaker deemed it more appropriate for the full court to pass upon such a motion.

WARREN ISSUES CALL

It said that, accordingly, Chief Justice Earl Warren after consulting with other members of the court, had called a special term of the court for Thursday noon to consider this application of the NAACP.

"The solicitor general of the United States is invited to file a brief and to participate in oral argument if he is so advised," the court said.

The White House had no comment on the court announcement. Press Secretary James C. Hagerty referred to the Justice Department all questions about whether the federal government would intervene in the case.

There have been less than a half-dozen special sessions of the Supreme Court since 1920. Among them have been emergency meetings to hear final appeals to halt the execution of captured Nazi saboteurs in World War II and Communist spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg in 1953.

In Little Rock, Gov. Orval E. Faubus worked on plans to ask the state legislature to close Central High School if the federal courts insist on integrating it. The legislature will meet in special session Tuesday.